How closely related are Nilotics to Bantu and West African Niger-Congo peoples?

[Sikeliot]

We know that Bantu people spread south and east from Cameroon and are related to Niger-Congo A speakers (Senegambian people, Beninese, Ghanaians).

But where did Nilotic peoples like the Dinka and Nuer come from? Did they branch off from the same ancestors as Bantus and West Africans, or are they unrelated? Who are their closest relatives and what was their ethnogenesis?

[K33]

We know that Bantu people spread south and east from Cameroon and are related to Niger-Congo A speakers (Senegambian people, Beninese, Ghanaians).

But where did Nilotic peoples like the Dinka and Nuer come from? Did they branch off from the same ancestors as Bantus and West Africans, or are they unrelated? Who are their closest relatives and what was their ethnogenesis?

I don't think anyone can answer this definitely until more and older sub-Saharan/MENA DNA is extracted.

But the Shum Laka abstract offered a hint:

We present a phylogenetic model including Shum Laka that features three major radiations within Africa: one phase early in the history of modern humans, one close to the time of the migration giving rise to non-Africans, and one in the past several thousand years.

I have said before my very speculative model is this:

300kya-150kya - Formation of South-to-East Africa hunter-gatherer cline. Early split off off of divergent "Ancestral West African" and "Ancestral Central African" components from this cline.

120-60kya - "Ancestral North Africans" and Basal Eurasians (collectively, "Basal-related") split off from East African HG cline. Basal Eurasians proper possibly based along either or both shores of the Red Sea (?)

~50-40kya - Breakup of E-P2; people with both Basal-related and E African forager ancestry carry the E1b1a branch all the way to the Gulf of Guinea. Massive founder effects on the y-chromosome and infusion of E African/Basal ancestry brings W/C Africans "closer" to the E/S African cline

10kya-3kya - Additonal wave(s) of Basal-related ancestry spread thru E African forager groups, especially during Green Sahara/Pastoral Neolithic. Possible additional Basal-related admix into W Africans at this time.

3kya-present - Bantu expansions bring many Central, East, and South Africans closer to West African populations

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My prediction is a group like Dinka will turn out to be something like 60% E African forager-related, 30% Basal-related, and 10% Ancestral W African-related.

Yoruba OTOH will rather be something like 60% Ancestral W African, 30% E African forager-related, and 10% Basal-related.

There may also be differences in the type of Basal ancestry in each population; ie, the Basal-related ancestry in Dinka may come in equal parts from both North African and Sudanic/Arabian Basal groups, while West African Basal-related ancestry would rather be more rooted in the ANA-related groups.

[Michalis Moriopoulos]

All accounts of Tropical African phylogeny are highly speculative at the moment because the ancient data isn't there, but what does seem clear is that West Africans and ancestral East African peoples are closely related in a global sense (i.e., compared to other groups in Africa and elsewhere). This has been assumed for over a century based purely on morphology (both groups are Negroid whereas San and North Africans are clearly not), but obviously that's not going to cut it in this day and age.

We've all seen how these groups cluster on PCAs and in admixture. What about genetic distance?

 

Check out Yoruba-Nilote FST:


Check out Yoruba-Anuak FST:


Inferred Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan components:

As you can see, the distance between them is not very high. Now, perhaps they're only similar because they both descend from very divergent groups that ultimately mixed together at one point. This could mirror the genesis of West Eurasians, which are usually modelled as mixes of Western Crown Eurasian + Basal Eurasian (the proportions of each component differing depending on the population in question-- Saudis and Libyans have a lot more Basal than Estonians and Finns do). A mixture scenario like this might also explain the close relationship between Yoruba-like people and Dinka-like people. Or maybe both descend primarily from Pleistocene East African foragers who acquired admixture later from more upstream or downstream groups. I await the Shum Laka paper with great interest.

[afbarwaaqo]

does anybody here know if the E African forager component peak's in groups like hadza?

[VytautusofAukstaitija]

I don't think anyone can answer this definitely until more and older sub-Saharan/MENA DNA is extracted.

But the Shum Laka abstract offered a hint:
I have said before my very speculative model is this:

300kya-150kya - Formation of South-to-East Africa hunter-gatherer cline. Early split off off of divergent "Ancestral West African" and "Ancestral Central African" components from this cline.

120-60kya - "Ancestral North Africans" and Basal Eurasians (collectively, "Basal-related") split off from East African HG cline. Basal Eurasians proper possibly based along either or both shores of the Red Sea (?)

~50-40kya - Breakup of E-P2; people with both Basal-related and E African forager ancestry carry the E1b1a branch all the way to the Gulf of Guinea. Massive founder effects on the y-chromosome and infusion of E African/Basal ancestry brings W/C Africans "closer" to the E/S African cline

10kya-3kya - Additonal wave(s) of Basal-related ancestry spread thru E African forager groups, especially during Green Sahara/Pastoral Neolithic. Possible additional Basal-related admix into W Africans at this time.

3kya-present - Bantu expansions bring many Central, East, and South Africans closer to West African populations

----------

My prediction is a group like Dinka will turn out to be something like 60% E African forager-related, 30% Basal-related, and 10% Ancestral W African-related.

Yoruba OTOH will rather be something like 60% Ancestral W African, 30% E African forager-related, and 10% Basal-related.

There may also be differences in the type of Basal ancestry in each population; ie, the Basal-related ancestry in Dinka may come in equal parts from both North African and Sudanic/Arabian Basal groups, while West African Basal-related ancestry would rather be more rooted in the ANA-related groups.

I'm very confused by what you mention as Basal? basal to what? or Basal Eurasian? Basal Human? - but I definitely agree with the broad-strokes outside of basal, I'm quite confused as to what you mean by that.

The way I see it - whatever aEA is had a massive population boom and exodus out of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa around 40 - 30,000 ybp, carrying ydna E, especially its E-P2 subclades - which serve as its primary patrilineal signature - and likely some E2 and E1a. Only one branch of each E-P2 subclade migrated successfully outside the Horn, E-M35 for E-M215, and E-M2 for E-V38. E1b1b-1 was the only E1b1b lineage that left the Horn, and E1b1a-1 was the only E1b1a lineage that left the Horn. The other subclade for both E1b1b and E1b1a are Paleolithic Horn African lineages that occurs overwhelmingly in groups peaking in Paleolithic SW Ethiopian HG ancestry and whatever putative Paleolithic Horn African ancestry exists in the Somali territories and possibly even the NE Horn. Both Paleolithic Horner E-M329 (brother of E-P2) and E-V16 (brother of E-M35) are concentrated in Omotics and Omotic admixed groups. Mota man was E-M329.

West-Central Africans are likely the result of a sub-group of the Paleolithic Horn African population migrating across the Sahel-central African belt and admixing with the heavily archaic admixed Basal Human populations of these regions. Due to the heavy L1 and L0 mtdna, and the rare A1a and A00 lineages in West-Central Africans, it was clearly heavily sex-biased and occurring within the last 40-15,000 years.

Nilo-Saharan populations must have formed after West-Central Africans, as they are defined by likely West-Central African ancestry. Or perhaps that is an artifact of some dosage of Basal Human ancestry they incurred modelling itself as West-Central African due to being the same Paleolithic Horn/Basal Human mix.

The same thing in West-Central Africa likely happened at the same time or abit earlier in the Egypto-Sudan between an incoming Euro-Levantine HG population and Paleolithic Horners arriving from the Horn, but I admit as to having no idea where ANA comes in. Unless Paleolithic Horners and (and maybe whatever the aEA in Erythreans/Cushitic is) is essentially heavily or predominately ANA itself. But as with West-Central Africans, later waves of admixture likely occurred - especially with Eurasians and the ancestors of Nilo-Saharans, as evidenced by R1b-V88 and strong ties with the Levant in the pre- and post-Neolithic period, and the assimilation of some central Saharan-Sahelian influences and A3b2 - and also, the possible relatedness between Afroasiatic and Nilotic languages, but as with Uralic and Indo-European, this isn't clear as of yet.

It is very confounding that Ibermaurusians aren't showing any autosomal signatures we would associate with this putative Paleolithic Horner population. But the fact they cluster with Central Erythrean/Cushitic Ageus may have to do with something in contemporary Erythreans/Cushitic populations, something more West-Central African related and having to do with the L0 and L2 and rare L1 mtdna we see in these populations, and in other early E-M35 carriers like Natufians and the Guanche Canary Islanders.

Concerning Nilotes (and Nilo-Saharans in general) and their closest relatives, they share fairly recent ancestry with both Erythreans/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans. But outside of any minimal Eurasian and highly divergent Basal Human ancestry they carry, they are probably more closer to Erythreans/Cushitic people. Their ydna, and to a degree their mtdna shows this as well. They don't really have much E-M2 (outside of Kordofainian and Ubangian/Bantu- admixed groups like the Nuba, Alur, and Lango), but do have alot of E-M35 of all sorts, including E-V22, E-V12, E-M35* and the like, and also some M and N, but with little of the expected autosomals accompanying this. Some like the Anyuak and Turkana have some E-V32 as well, but this is likely recent. I'm not including Southeast African Nilotes, and the Kunama and Nara due to their clear heavy Erythrean/Cushitic ancestry. But Darfuris, like the Fur, Masalit, and the like have very high E-V32, almost highest % in any ethnic group, with the Masalit at around 80-90% E-V32, but this also doesn't seemingly have a heavy autosomal impact, perhaps unlike the E-V22 in the Turkana, so this doesn't probably chalk up hugely when it comes to autosomal relatedness between Nilo-Saharans and Erythreans/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans. On the whole, they would cluster in between Erythrean/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans, with Central Sudanics being more closer to West-Central Africans, and more Nilotic groups like the Bari being more in-between and less closer but abit closer overall to West-Central Africans, but whether this is due to likely Sudanic ancestry in West Africans is unknown, although I chalk this stronger tie with West-Central Africans to this and the significant West-Central African-like ancestry and lack of much or even any Eurasian ancestry in South Sudanese Nilotes and other Nilo-Saharans and not to the base component of Nilo-Saharan ancestry.

I also think it is necessary to mention that the ancestry that makes up half to a slight majority of West-Central African ancestry is the most divergent human ancestry relative to all other human ancestries that we know thus far. That, in addition to the archaic ancestry that hovers around 5-11% would have made them the most divergent group of humans today had it not been for very heavy Paleolithic Horn African ancestry (aEA and ANA?) that mixed into the Paleolithic West-Central-Sahelian African population(s) in between the last 40-15,000 years, but closer to the earlier.

The group I believe that can give us the best idea of what these Paleolithic Horn African E-P2 bearers is the MSA Khormusan culture, which has strong affinities with the Horn and is likely a transplant Horn African culture to the Egypto-Sudan. Their West-Central African counterparts are unknown to us as of yet, but in time they should be identified. But the dates of the Khormusan overlap strongly with E-M215 and later branching 40-35,000 years ago, and its replacement and stark break with earlier Mousterian traditions in the Egypto-Sudan all indicate a population fresh out of the Horn, a few thousand to a few generations removed.

[TuaMan]

The group I believe that can give us the best idea of what these Paleolithic Horn African E-P2 bearers is the MSA Khormusan culture, which has strong affinities with the Horn and is likely a transplant Horn African culture to the Egypto-Sudan. Their West-Central African counterparts are unknown to us as of yet, but in time they should be identified. But the dates of the Khormusan overlap strongly with E-M215 and later branching 40-35,000 years ago, and its replacement and stark break with earlier Mousterian traditions in the Egypto-Sudan all indicate a population fresh out of the Horn, a few thousand to a few generations removed.

This paper should be of interest to you; the Khormusan might be closer to 80,000 years old rather than the conventionally dated 40,000 years.

https://www.academia.edu/4334900/The...ustry_in_Nubia

[K33]

I'm very confused by what you mention as Basal? basal to what? or Basal Eurasian? Basal Human? - but I definitely agree with the broad-strokes outside of basal, I'm quite confused as to what you mean by that.

Basal Eurasian/Ancestral North African would be populations that split off from the East African HG cline around the time frame I specified, with ANA splitting off rather earlier than BE proper. Phylogenically, ANA/BE would be more closely related to non-Africans than they would be to Ancestral West, Central, and South Africans. One of these Basal Eurasian groups would have eventually broken out of the Middle East around 70kya-50kya, successfully pushing back Neandersovan hegemony in greater Eurasia and forming a "Basal Crown Eurasian" clade-- the ancestors of East and West Crown Eurasians. BE/ANA's relationship with Ancestral East Africans (aEA?) would be more complex. I believe the area from the east Sudanian savannah to the Red Sea was a very old contact/admixture zone. Mota_4500BP, Malawi_9000BP, etc, will all have substantial Basal Eurasian and/or ANA-related ancestry. But I also believe there will be an "older" substratum of African forager ancestry in these groups, which would be phylogentically intermediate between BE/ANA and South Africans.

The current best proxies we have for "Basal Eurasian/ANA" ancestry are Iberomaurusians and Natufians. In Lazaridis 2018 (Dzudzuana paper) Natufian is modeled as only 20% Basal Eurasian and 12% ANA. Iberomaursians otoh are modeled as 45% ANA and 15% BE. In other words, Iberomaurusians have much less Aurignacian- and Epigravettian-related admixture than Natufians. This is why geneticists were able to uncover the Basal-related ancestry in modern West Africans (13% Taforalt-related ancestry in Yoruba), but the contribution of BE to Nilo-Saharans remains obscured. There will be a very old BE/ANA layer in East Africa, that likely arrived prior to Crown Eurasian admixture into MENA.

The Max Planck Institute has uncovered a 90,000 year old homo sapiens finger bone from Al-Wusta in Arabia. If they can extract and sequence DNA from this find, THIS will be a great proxy for "unadmixed" Basal Eurasian ancestry.

West-Central Africans are likely the result of a sub-group of the Paleolithic Horn African population migrating across the Sahel-central African belt and admixing with the heavily archaic admixed Basal Human populations of these regions. Due to the heavy L1 and L0 mtdna, and the rare A1a and A00 lineages in West-Central Africans, it was clearly heavily sex-biased and occurring within the last 40-15,000 years.

....

I also think it is necessary to mention that the ancestry that makes up half to a slight majority of West-Central African ancestry is the most divergent human ancestry relative to all other human ancestries that we know thus far. That, in addition to the archaic ancestry that hovers around 5-11% would have made them the most divergent group of humans today had it not been for very heavy Paleolithic Horn African ancestry (aEA and ANA?) that mixed into the Paleolithic West-Central-Sahelian African population(s) in between the last 40-15,000 years, but closer to the earlier.

Yeah, the bottom line is we need to see what the Ancestral West African population looked like. I agree the evidence is zeroing in on ~5-10% archaic ancestry for modern West Africans. If that's the case you can imagine countless possibilities to explain their current position.

Assume the Ancestral West African population was, say, 30% archaic ("Basal Human"), with the archaic (heidelbergensis-related) portion splitting from pre-homo sapiens 700kya, and the non-archaic ("Basal African") portion splitting from the East-to-South African HG cline 200kya. If this is the case, then a much larger autosomal replacement from E1b1a-bearing East Africans (on the order of 70-80% replacement) is required to explain the modern position of West Africans

On the other hand, if the Ancestral West African population was only 15% archaic, then perhaps a more mild influx of autosomal admixture from Paleolithic East Africans (say, 30%-40%, as I conjectured in the previous post) is required, with a more lopsided effect on the y-chromosome (E1b1a).

[NetNomad]

Concerning Nilotes (and Nilo-Saharans in general) and their closest relatives, they share fairly recent ancestry with both Erythreans/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans. But outside of any minimal Eurasian and highly divergent Basal Human ancestry they carry, they are probably more closer to Erythreans/Cushitic people. Their ydna, and to a degree their mtdna shows this as well. They don't really have much E-M2 (outside of Kordofainian and Ubangian/Bantu- admixed groups like the Nuba, Alur, and Lango), but do have alot of E-M35 of all sorts, including E-V22, E-V12, E-M35* and the like, and also some M and N, but with little of the expected autosomals accompanying this. Some like the Anyuak and Turkana have some E-V32 as well, but this is likely recent. I'm not including Southeast African Nilotes, and the Kunama and Nara due to their clear heavy Erythrean/Cushitic ancestry. But Darfuris, like the Fur, Masalit, and the like have very high E-V32, almost highest % in any ethnic group, with the Masalit at around 80-90% E-V32, but this also doesn't seemingly have a heavy autosomal impact, perhaps unlike the E-V22 in the Turkana, so this doesn't probably chalk up hugely when it comes to autosomal relatedness between Nilo-Saharans and Erythreans/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans. On the whole, they would cluster in between Erythrean/Cushitic peoples and West-Central Africans, with Central Sudanics being more closer to West-Central Africans, and more Nilotic groups like the Bari being more in-between and less closer but abit closer overall to West-Central Africans, but whether this is due to likely Sudanic ancestry in West Africans is unknown, although I chalk this stronger tie with West-Central Africans to this and the significant West-Central African-like ancestry and lack of much or even any Eurasian ancestry in South Sudanese Nilotes and other Nilo-Saharans and not to the base component of Nilo-Saharan ancestry.

Actually the Fur and Masalit have more around 40-50% E-V32, not 80-90%. I think you are adding up their E-V22 there. It is likely all E-V5933 in their case, a ~3,400 year old subclade of E-V32 mostly found in the Central Sahel (between North Cameroon, Chad, and Darfur).

I think something similar to the high R1b-V88 in North Cameroon/Chad is happening with them. They carry the Y-clade of a relic Afro-Asiatic population that gave birth to the Chadics, but autosomally retained very little North African affinity unlike Horners but similar to Chadic speakers with high R1b & low Afro-Asiatic associated autosomal ancestry.

[drobbah]

Founder effects